Sunday, 11 March 2018

The Financial Times has a
fascinating article called When Islam met the Enlightenment (28
February, 2018) bout Europe's intellectual engagement with the Muslim
world in the seventeenth century, including an analysis of some of the European literature prodused at the time on the subject:

"If their medieval progenitors were generally motivated by a desire to prove
Islam a profane heresy from the east, this new and diverse Republic of Arabic
letters adopted a cooler approach. They wrote in a less polemical key and
recognised the culture of the Islamic world, so Bevilacqua writes, “as a
holistic set of religious, intellectual, and literary traditions deserving
respect and attention, and as an object of study that would yield intellectual,
aesthetic, and even moral enrichment in a variety of fields”.

Friday, 11 December 2015

Some interesting Analysis by Loren Thompson for Forbes (from back in February 2015) called "Five Reasons The ISIS Fight Isn't About Islam". He lists these as:

1. Numbers: prospective ISIS supporters would be a minority within a minority:"Four out of five Muslims aren’t Arabs and don’t live in the Middle East. Among those who do maybe a quarter are young Sunni males, and most of them show little inclination to actively support ISIS."

2. Non-Muslims have committed similar atrocities.

3. Everybody in ISIS doesn’t believe the same thing.

4. For many ISIS members, Islam is a pretext:

"It appears that every culture produces large numbers of young males who can be mobilized in the pursuit of millenarian philosophies, not because of the specific content of the vision, but because young men yearn for power and status and resources"

The Canadian Newspaper Global News (7th December 2015) picked up the story of two Canadian Muslim sisters who have travelled to Jordan to provide free dental care for Syrian refugees. The sisters, Asile and Asraa El-Darahali, raised funds for equipment and spent five days treating up to twenty patients a day:

"The two volunteered at the Zaatari refugee camp, one of the largest communities in the country, as part of a trip by the Syrian American Medical Society.

The women, who live in Dartmouth, skipped lunch breaks to treat up to 20 patients per day, which is double the normal amount of people they treat. They paid $3,000 each for travel and accommodations.

image sourceYou can see more in the original article and video here. and a video about their work here.

Thursday, 19 February 2015

The Huffington Post recently (13th February 2015) carried a story about the Muslim Free Hospital established in Burma:"In 1937 the Muslim Free Hospital was established in Rangon, Burma. It was created by a group of Muslim leaders to care for the poor of Rangoon that had no other access to medical care. The initial investment came entirely from Muslims. The Muslim Free Hospital still exists and is still funded by the donations of Muslims of Myanmar.

From to the beginning the hospital did not discriminate on the basis of religion, ethnic group, or income. The Muslims of Myanmar have been and still are paying for the medical care of poor Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, or member of any religion.

It is particularly remarkable that this is occurring in Myanmar. Muslims are a minority in Myanmar, about 4% of the population. Many Muslims in Myanmar live in fear. Violence against peaceful Muslims is on the increase. Militant Buddhist monks openly incite violence against Muslims. In parts of Myanmar businesses and homes are burned. Muslims are killed. Buddhist monks openly ask all Muslims to leave their country and call them animals.

The outpatient clinics care for 450 outpatients a day. The hospital has 160 beds. In the year 2000, a year for which there are statistics, there were approximately 6000 cared for as inpatients. The hospital has medical, surgical, maternity, and a special unit for eye patients. Currently an average of 220 deliveries occur a month. The hospital has x-ray facilities, pharmacy, ultrasound unit, and operating rooms."

Monday, 12 May 2014

Rabia Chaudrey has written an open letter to Bill Mayer in Time Magazine (12th May 2014) questioning his dislike of Islam:"You noted that women are treated at best like second-class citizens, but most often like property in Islam. The first Muslim woman,Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, a successful businesswoman, boss-lady and wife to the Prophet Muhammad, and the other Muslim women of his time would have snickered at you. Women of the region were chattel before Islam, treated and traded as such, until the Quran freed them through revelations such as “O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will.”

"Nothing I tell you would matter, though. The facts are irrelevant. That’s how bigotry operates. It’s both telling and troubling that you referred to these issues as “the Muslim question.” The reference didn’t escape me and it’s hard to believe it was anything but deliberate. Think for a second about what was unleashed by the “Jewish question” in Europe. Bigotry sometimes does that, too."

Sunday, 19 January 2014

The Bradenton Herald (19 January 2014) carries an interesting opinion piece on the views on Islam of the American founding father, President and author of the Declaration of Independence:"In 1776, Jefferson inscribed these pivotal words among his private notes: "(N)either Pagan nor Mahometan (Muslim) nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion." They were written a few months after he composed the Declaration of Independence, when he returned to Virginia to draft new laws for his state.

Jefferson borrowed the precedent of "civil rights" for Muslims from the English philosopher John Locke's 1689 tract, "A Letter Concerning Toleration." Locke's ideas about the toleration of Muslims and Jews provoked attacks: One critic condemned him for having "the faith of a Turk." His enemies also charged, rightly, that he owned a copy of the Quran, which they termed "the Mahometan bible."

Friday, 19 July 2013

The Huffington Post (15 July 2013) reports on the effort of students from the School of Oriental and African Studies to share their iftar meal (to break their fast) with members of the community by setting up a "Ramadan Tent":"Students from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) are welcoming the public to their "Ramadan Tent" during Islam's holy month. The university, in Bloomsbury, is being used as the site where iftar, the sunset meal which breaks the fast, will be served.

Omar Salha, an SOAS alumnus, says he came up with the idea because he wanted to connect with communities.

"We want this Ramadan campaign to challenge some of the misconceptions people have about Islam. But it's also about connecting with all communities on a more humanistic level. It's only right that as Muslims and Londoners we serve the wider London community in the spirit of Ramadan.

"Some residents from St Mungo's saw our advert in their residence and came," he continued, saying he was particularly keen to reach out to those ostracised by society. "They were reluctant to say who they were at the beginning, but later said they were happy that there are still people reaching out to them."

"The purpose of Ramadan Tent is to understand and appreciate the importance of charity and remembering those less fortunate than us; to join in the practise of sharing and caring and charitable duties towards our family, our local community and our nation.

"To invite the homeless and the poor and not turn them away, even if all we can give is half a date; to say a good word, to smile, to safeguard our environment and pick up rubbish and above all else to keep peace and good relations between people."